The Miracle Drug
Of the 620,000 men who died during the Civil War, more than half were neither killed in action nor wounded, but succumbed to disease. Doctors knew little about illness and less about treating it. One treatment was effective: quinine quelled the periodic fevers of malaria, but doctors would prescribe it for just about anything, like a toothache or a cough. Because the only manufacturers of quinine were in the North, the South depended on smugglers. Some of the most effective were women who could hide items in their voluminous skirts.
Female smugglers would also carry dolls with hollow heads to conceal medicines like quinine and morphine.
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